Between 3 and 5 June, the 2022 Geography Night was held with the support of the regional branch of the Russian Geographical Society and representatives of VSU and Voronezh State Pedagogical University. Students from the 2nd year of the VSU “Geography” programme did their practical training in the nature reserve “Divnogorie”. On 4 June, the event was organised by Igor Nazarov, a senior researcher at the reserve and an active member of the Russian Geographical Society.
Geography Night for future specialists in geography required a special programme. During the practice the students learnt more about how the area of Divnogorie looks during the day. And the night route with special observational tasks that activated different senses allowed noticing those things that most travellers usually miss in a hurry.
“We recorded our sensations, gave names to the colours of the sky and the forest, we used our memory (what was that place on the map?), listened to the sounds of the nature and cars, guesses animals by the sounds they make and herbs by their smell, and we also tried to guess the small items of nature by their tactile description from our fellow students. We drank hot tea, played the guitar and sang songs, and we also tried to find some constellations in the sky,” said Daniil Pimenov, a 2nd year student.
On 3 June, two event platforms were organised in the building of the Faculty of Geography, Geoecology, and Tourism. First-year SVE students supported by the Voronezh branch of the Russian Geographical Society participated in the quiz “Africa and Russia: common ground” prepared by Maria Derevyagina, a senior lecturer. At first, the participants answered the questions about the symbols, similarities and differences of programmes, and national and demographic features of African countries and Russian regions. Then they studied the unique style of Africa. Students were asked to remember cartoons, films, poems, and fairy tales that mention Africa. After that, the students assembled spils-maps (sets of magnets in the shape of countries and regions) of Africa and Russia and then added other parts of the world. For each correct answer they received a point in the national currencies of African countries. The students showed good skills, logic, and quick-wittedness.
International students of the second and third years of the “Tourism” programme participated in Geography Night under the supervision of Associate Professor Svetlana Stcherbinina. They organised a travel quiz “Visiting a country”. Turkmenistan was chosen as the interesting setting for the game. Two teams went on a “trip”, and each of them was offered five routes that helped them to learn more about resources of the country, national holidays and costumes, old and modern cities, resorts, unique buildings, amazing dishes, as well as the culture and its unique style. To receive as many points as possible, on each of the routes they had to go through five stages (tasks with questions) that were logically related. As a result, the team of second year students received 265 points for their “trip” while the team of third year students got 345 points.
On 3 June, schoolchildren from Kiselev school together with their geography teacher Marina Akopyan examined the coastline of the River Don and lake Krugloye near Podgornoye village. They also studied plant communities, layerage, and diversity of species and performed a comparative analysis of different areas. The event was held as part of the summer ecological expedition dedicated to the study of the water resources of Voronezh and its vicinities.
On 4 June, Geography Night was conducted in the parks of Voronezh. Associate Professor, Evgenia Zhigulina gave a tour around Petrovsky and Orlynok parks. The starting point of the tour was chosen for a reason as the 350th anniversary of Peter the Great was celebrated during those days. Evgenia talked about the history of Voronezh and the creation of parks, and the participants learnt about their functional zoning and evaluated the landscape of parks and gardens. They also gave an assessment of their emotional state during their visit.
The next location was outside Voronezh. Active members of the youth club of the Voronezh Regional Branch of the Russian Geographical Society supervised by Associate Professor Dmitry Vladimirov organised a series of phenological observations, including the blossoming of wild roses.
Another platform was dedicated to the study of the rural building landscape from the emotional and aesthetic points of view. It was organised by Associate Professor Lidia Mezhova from Voronezh State Pedagogical University with the participation of Lyubov Lopatina, a teacher from Norovo-Rotaevskaya school in the Nizhnedevitsk District. Pupils and students learnt about how a rural estate is designed and how traditional and modern decoration elements are combined in buildings and landscape design.
